The Man Who Can't Be Moved
by burnedupasun
Summary: "People talk about the guy that's waiting on a girl. There are no holes in his shoes but a big hole in his world. Going back to the corner where I first saw you. Gonna camp in my sleeping bag, I'm not gonna move."


****A/N: This is just another little one-shot. It diverges from S05.E02 "Strangers". Instead of going out and seeing the car with the white cross, Daryl leaves on his own to go wait for his girl, and Beth escapes the hospital with Noah at the end of "Slabtown". Just a little something I wanted to write, inspired by The Man Who Can't Be Moved, by The Script.**

He sat in the church, candlelight flickering across the faces of the people he considered family. They were his brothers, his sisters, his friends, the people that he had at times been willing to sacrifice his own life for. The people he would throw himself into the flames for, if only for a chance to help them. They were the people he'd always thought he knew so well.

Now, he wasn't so sure.

They were sitting around the church, all flushed with the pleasure of being reunited, of finally having all of them together again; Rick, Carl, Judith, Tyreese, Sasha, Bob, Carol, Michonne, Maggie, Glenn, and the newcomers. They were celebrating being together, being reunited, as if that was it. As if they _were_ whole again.

They toasted: "_To the survivors!_" as if one of them wasn't still missing. As if the very words didn't make his gut twist with guilt and anger and sorrow.

Or maybe they said it as if they'd already assumed that she wasn't what they claimed to be; a survivor. Maybe they didn't think of her, because they'd already assumed she was lost.

Daryl sat there and wondered if he was the only one who could feel the empty space she had left behind. It was a small space, so maybe that was why none of them seemed to notice her absence. It was small, but no less important for that, no less _felt_ for that. In fact, he could feel it like he had felt so few things before; this ever-present gnawing sensation that never went away.

Her absence was a little space right against his side, where her arm once brushed against his as they settled back against a tree. It was the missing echo of a giggled laugh in his ear, it was the lost piercing stare of cornflower blue eyes that used to look at him and _see_ him, like no one had seen before. It was the lingering smell of moonshine and the crackle of flames. The space she left behind was a hole in his world, a hole that echoed with unsung lyrics and melodies, a void without the scent of strawberries or a bright smile like sunshine.

Daryl was so acutely aware of it that it was like that absence was inside of him, emptiness wrapped around his heart, and turning it cold. Turning it to ice that spread a chill through his whole body. But none of them seemed to feel it. None of them seemed to even care.

They wanted to go to Washington.

He sat in silence, his back propped against a church pew as he listened to Abraham rattle on the way he's seemed to do every time he's gotten the chance. Abraham went on and on about DC the same way Merle used to go on about drugs, or a 'hot piece of tail', only with this hint of righteous fervor that always rubbed Daryl the wrong way. He was doing it again, now, building up like he was making some holy-ass sermon or speech or some other bullshit.

"Come with us. Save the world for that little one. Save it for yourselves. Save it for the people out there who don't got nothing left to do except survive."

Daryl already felt the furrow in his brow, the anger boiling low inside of him to mingle with the sadness, the longing, the emptiness of missing her. Who were they saving the world for, if they didn't even care enough to save their own family? If they didn't care enough to save _Beth_? What was the point of saving a world without hope in it? To Daryl, Beth _was_ hope. She epitomized it, she radiated it, he couldn't imagine having hope in anything without picturing her, without having her there.

Apparently, he was the only one who felt that way.

"She's in," Rick said nearby, looking down at Judith. The baby had pretty much been raised by Beth, the girl that no one else seemed to care was missing. Beth was that baby's mama, more than anyone had ever been, but Rick didn't even seem to remember, or care. "If she's in, I'm in."

He heard the others around him, agreeing without hesitation. Carl, who had been half in love with Beth for a brief period of time. Carol, who had raised Judith right beside her, cared for Beth almost like a mother. Glenn, who had protected her like a little sister.

But the worst was Maggie, chiming in happily as if she didn't even notice or care that her sister was gone. He wanted to jump up and grab her and shout at her. He wanted to shake some goddamn sense into her; wanted to shake some goddamn _emotion_ into her. He'd never hit a woman, but lord did he at least wish there was some way to knock the memories of her sister back into the woman's pathetic head.

In the time after the prison, he'd been ready to give up, but Beth hadn't. She'd fought, wanting to get back to all of them. Every day she'd looked for signs, every day she'd talked about finding her sister, their family, reuniting with them. Over time she had convinced him to have hope, too. To believe they were alive. After all that, it had turned out she was right.

After all that, it had turned out that the very people she'd had so much hope for didn't seem to have any of the same for her. Except him.

There were two options. Technically there were three, but the third was going with them to DC without her and that wasn't an option Daryl was willing to take. So for him, there were only two: He could make a scene now, argue and fight and try to convince them to come with him, or he could go tonight when everyone was asleep, and just slip away. Leave them behind, the way they had all left Beth.

Despite his deep-seated anger and quick temper, he had always been better at slipping away. Like a ghost; unheard, unseen, untrackable. Except ghosts probably didn't leave notes the way he did, scrawled on paper in his messy rough handwriting: _I ain't in. I can't be. Not without her. Ain't no point in hope, otherwise. We ain't the good guys if we give up on her, and I won't. Leave a map, if you can. Maybe we'll follow, when I find her._

He left it on the altar of the church and slipped away away into the forest, skirting easily around Bob on guard to disappear into the trees.

Of course, finding her was easier said than done. He had no idea where she was or who had taken her, but he'd been thinking it over for days,and finally something had occurred to him. Maybe he didn't have to know where she was. Maybe he just needed to know where she'd _go_.

Cause his girl, Beth, she wasn't gonna let anyone take her with a fight. She was clever, she was bright, she was _strong_. She knew how to defend herself, thanks to him and the others. She would get out, that wasn't a question. The question was where she'd go, once she did so.

His first thought was the funeral home. The last place he saw her, candlelight flickering across her face, a question in those big blue eyes. He'd go there, if he could. Hell, he'd spent half his nights since wishing he could go back to that moment again. He knew how to find the place again, but would she? Wherever she was, could she find her way back to it? He didn't think so, and more importantly, he thought she'd know that, too.

It wasn't just about where he thought she'd look, but where _she_ would expect him to look, where she'd expect him to wait for her. He also didn't think she could find the prison, or that she'd go there even if she could. It was too overrun, too dangerous, and there were too many bad memories there, for her.

There was only one place that he was sure Beth knew how to find on her own, and it just happened to be the place where he first saw her. The farm. Her home. That was where he'd go, because it was the only place he could think of as the place _she_ would go to. Whenever she could.

He had no idea how long it might take for her to get there. If he had to, he'd wait. He'd wait as long as it took, for her.

...

It took almost two weeks for him to find his way back to the farm. They'd traveled a good ways as a group in the time since, and though he could move faster on his own, he didn't rush. A part of him was just on edge, always waiting to spot a car with a white cross on the back, signaling the other way back to her. Always waiting to see a flicker of blonde hair at the corner of his eyes, for her to catch up to him somehow. But she was never there.

Eventually he made it to the farm, having walked most of the way. Coming up the driveway was like stepping back in time. The barn was completely burned down, but the house was still standing, and he was glad to find that there weren't many walkers around. They would have moved on, anyway, once they got what they'd come after. They'd have kept herding, kept moving, searching for more lives to destroy.

Mostly, he was just glad that the house was there, and safe. He was glad that Beth wouldn't have to come back to the sight of her childhood home burned right down to the basement the way he had, decades ago as a kid. No one deserved that, but especially not her.

There had been a tiny part of him that thought he might find her, waiting for him. But there was no slim blonde girl sitting on the front steps, or appearing in the doorway at the sight of him coming down the long, dusty driveway. That was alright. His plan all along had been to wait for her.

He had work to do, at least at first. He cleaned away all the bodies he could find, and burned them a safe distance away. He secured the house as best he could manage, making sure no walkers had gotten inside. In some ways, walking inside that farmhouse was harder than he'd expected. He had never spent too much time in the house; it had always felt wrong. Dixons weren't meant for homey farmhouses with clean bright walls and worn comfy furniture. He had always felt too dirty. He'd always felt like he didn't belong there.

Yet now, inside again, that feeling was gone. Instead, every room reminded him of her; the kitchen where he'd once quietly watched her wash dishes, the living room where he'd caught a glimpse of her singing and playing piano, the room where he'd stayed after Andrea had shot him and Beth had helped her father to care for him with gentle shy touches and soft murmured words. The only place he lingered was a bedroom with sunshine-yellow walls and white curtains that fluttered in the breeze from the open second-floor window. He'd never gone in here once in his time at the farm. He never would have felt right in a room so pure and sweet as this. Same as he'd not felt right standing near her, for the longest time, like it was wrong for someone as broken and dirty as him to be so close to something so good.

He'd only realized after he'd lost her, that he'd been wrong all along. That there was no place he felt more right than beside her.

Even now, he couldn't bring himself to step inside. It wasn't right, without her there. He closed the door and retreated, but the scent of strawberries and honey that had lingered in the air inside clung to his nose even as he made his way down the hallway and away.

With the house secure, there was little he could do but what he planned to all along; wait. He dropped to the front steps of the porch with his crossbow beside him, arms on his knees, staring off down the driveway... and he waited.

He waited until his bones grow weary with it and began to creak each time he stood up and stretched, reminding himself to get food or water. Sometimes he hunted, but he never went far, he always did his best to keep the house in sight. The only time he went inside was at night, for safety, and even then there was a part of him attuned to the driveway outside the window, listening for the crunch of footsteps, the sound of her coming back to him.

And every day as the sun rose he was there, lowering his old bones back onto the porch steps. He didn't move. He _couldn't_ be moved. All he could do was wait, and trust... and _hope_, the way she taught him to. Hope that she'd find her way back to him.

...

When she came at last, he was right there waiting. He'd lost track of how long it had been, but some internal clock told him weeks, at the least. Probably longer. She was direct as always, coming right down the driveway just like he had, kicking up dust with her feet as she walked. She was wearing what looked like hospital scrubs, the once-blue now covered in dirt and blood and the grime that they'd all become used to these days.

Her blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail, but what struck him the most were the two scars that marred her pale skin; one across each cheek, dark and angry looking. They make him wanna find whoever put them there and mark them right back for daring to touch her, let alone hurt her.

Daryl wanted to rise to his feet when he saw her, but he wasn't sure if his body would cooperate. That, and a part of him had been waiting for so long that he wasn't even sure if she was real. Maybe he'd been waiting so long that now he was hallucinating, seeing her like a mirage in the dry desert of missing her.

But she looked real. The dust in her hair looked real, and the relief etched across her face looked real, and when she was just a few feet away from him, he looked up into those big blue eyes and he _knew_ she was real. It was her. It was _Beth_.

She stepped between his knees where they were spread wide, his feet planted on the ground, and she sank to her own knees between them. Her arms slid around his stomach as she pressed her face against his chest, and he was reminded of a time where she did the opposite; her hands splayed against his stomach and her face pressed against his back, holding him like no one in his life had ever held him before.

"I knew you'd be here," Beth whispered into the worn fabric of his shirt.

"I knew you'd come," Daryl said back, his voice low and rumbling in a chest that had suddenly gone tight with emotion. He'd never been good at dealing with emotion, but for her he tried. He fought to get it under control, fought to stop himself from choking on the words bubbling up inside of him. He reached his arms around her, finding her slender delicate back and splaying his hands across the breadth of it. "C'mere, girl."

In one easy motion he pulled her up into his lap, legs straddling him in a way that Merle likely would have found obscene. In the moment it was nothing of the sort. It was simply them, needing to be close to each other. Her forehead rested against his, and they shared their breaths between them as they looked down into each other's eyes.

"Wasn't gonna go anywhere without ya, Greene," His voice broke the silence after a long moment. "I tried. Chased after that car for two whole days, but I couldn't find ya. I'm sor-" He broke off and shook his head. She'd just be mad, if he tried to apologize. Swallowing hard, he went on, "But I knew you'd find me. I knew you'd come back here, if you could."

She shuddered against him, one hand curling into his shirt at his chest and the other gripping his back. "They took me away. I don't even remember how, Daryl. One minute I was standing there waiting for you and walkers were coming at me, and then... and then I was there in the hospital with a broken wrist and a cut on my face and I asked for you, but you weren't there, it was just me and..." He voice broke, chipping a piece of his heart with it. "-and it was a _bad place_, Daryl. It was a bad, bad place."

Daryl could feel her trembling in his arms and it made a part of him want to stand up and storm off and find that place. It made him want to tear it down to its foundations, burn it to the ground, punish anyone who had a hand in making Beth tremble like that in his arms. But she _was_ in his arms, right there where he'd ached for her to be for so long, and that was more important than anything like revenge could ever be.

"You ain't there, anymore," he murmured as he took a slow breath and looked into her eyes.

"No. I got out." Beth's voice was hoarse and low as she went on, "I was with someone, he helped me get out but... but he didn't make it." He watched, heart aching for her as she pressed her eyes shut and dragged in a shuddering breath. "I didn't stop, I just kept moving. I just wanted to go _home_, Daryl, but whenever I thought of home-" Her eyes fluttered open to fix on him, and she breathed the words out all hushed and weighted, "When I thought of him, I just thought of you."

Something uncurled inside him at her words, unfurling in response, calling silently back: _Yes, me too._ She put into words so easily what he'd been feeling all this time. No place had ever felt like home until that night in the flickering candlelight, the taste of peanut butter on his tongue and that look in her blue eyes. It hadn't been the funeral home, though. It had been her. Beth. _His home_.

Her voice drew him back to her. "So I just tried to think of where you'd go. Where you'd wait for me, if you couldn't find me. In the end, I just... I just knew it'd be here. The one place I knew how to find, the one place _you'd_ know I could find." She looked up and her eyes were bright as they stared into his, a little smile on her lips. "The first place I ever saw you, climbing off your bike right here in front of the porch."

He chuckled, low in his chest. "Yeah, I remember. You were standin' there, all clean and sweet and lookin' too damn innocent."

"_Hey_!" There was a laughter in her voice as her nose brushed against his, and that laughter had to be the best thing he'd heard in weeks, maybe even months. Her laughter eased a knot inside him, inside both of them, cause he could see the tension ease briefly out of her too.

"Well you were," Daryl said roughly, a faint smile flickering at the corner of his mouth, "Ain't a bad thing. Fact is, you were the best lookin' thing I'd seen in ages."

A soft smile crossed her lips, only to tighten and fade a second later. She leaned in, her forehead pressing to his again as she whispered, "I ain't so innocent anymore, Daryl."

Something clenched in his chest even as he shoved away any attempt to wonder what had happened to her, what she'd gone through to make her believe that. Wondering would only make him want revenge even more, and right now, the girl in his arms needed him far more. "Don't matter," he murmured, one hand coming up to cup the side of her face. "Maybe you ain't so innocent, but you're still good, Beth."

He heard her words echoing in his mind (_What changed your mind?_) and finally, he spoke the reply he hadn't been able to say back then, "You're the only damn reason I believe there's good left in this world at all."

And Beth just smiled at him and brushed her nose against his, and whispered in a sigh so damn close to his lips, "_Oh._"

That was more than enough of a reply for him. They sat there in content silence for a long moment, just holding each other, drinking in their nearness and the warmth between their bodies, until Beth finally breathed out, "Were you sitting here a long time, waiting for me?"

"Don't matter. I was waitin' on my girl." Daryl looked up at her, and a slow smile crossed his lips as he tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. "Wasn't nothin' in the world could've moved me, however long it took."

He wrapped his arms around her, and drew her to his chest again, his chin brushing against the top of her head as he thought about how he would have stayed here forever, if he'd had to. How there'd have been no point in doing anything else, without her at his side, especially not knowing she was out there somewhere, alive. Daryl felt the same way in that moment, too. Like he could stay here forever just holding her in his arms, sitting on steps of her porch and keeping her close. He knew that eventually they'd have to move. Eventually it would turn to talking; about what had happened to them both, about what she'd suffered, about their family and why they weren't here with them.

But that was eventually. For a little while, it could be just like this. The man who couldn't be moved from the woman in his arms.

****A/N: I know it's not much, but it was in my head and I wanted to get it out. (I'm currently trying not to let it want to become something longer in my head, I don't need more chapter-fic ideas, haha.) But I hope you all enjoyed it. 3**


End file.
